Customer case
MANAGING A COMPUTER PARK WITH SAMBA-AD AND WAPT
COLLECTIVITY – DEPARTMENTAL COUNCIL
Presentation
The Conseil Départemental, which is located in the south of France, comprises 2,500 workstations, around 100 remote sites and 3,500 agents. In the near future, the department will acquire a further 5,750 workstations. The department will then manage over 10,000 workstations.
The IT department is made up of three divisions:
- The support pole, which manages workstations, from installation, to deployment, monitoring and installation of applications.
- The research department, where project managers work.
- The infrastructure division, which manages the network server, system and security.
10,000 jobs administered
More than 100 sites
7 team members
Implementation of SAMBA-AD
Initially, the IT team was using Samba 3, which didn’t do Active Directory. Together, the IT team set up the infrastructure and reached the limits of Samba 3. They needed a domain, GPO (Group Policy Object)…. After starting up a Samba 4.0 infrastructure on his own, our contact needed help and contacted Tranquil IT to manage his IT assets. We began working together in 2016. “With Tranquil IT, we consolidated, solidified and secured the infrastructure. We decided to take on support because internally we were using Samba-AD more and more. We needed support.”
The department is ANSSI level 3 certified. At the start of the Samba-AD installation, neighboring local authorities didn’t understand the choice, as neighboring teams didn’t know the product.
Samba-AD on a daily basis
Currently, Samba-AD is interfaced with the account management tool according to departures or arrivals in the community. As a result, the creation or cancellation of an account is carried out by Human Resources. In addition, Samba-AD has enabled the team to apply GPOs (Group Policy Objects) and strategies, and to increase security on their domain. On a weekly basis, the team has saved a considerable amount of time on Samba-AD, thanks to the implementation of a number of automations that reduce the time spent on it. The department is very satisfied with Samba-AD, which meets all its needs and requirements, and has no plans to change software.
Currently, Samba-AD is interfaced with the account management tool according to departures or arrivals in the community. As a result, the creation or cancellation of an account is carried out by HR.
Actually, Samba-AD is interfaced with the account management tool according to departures or arrivals in the community.
Estimated gains with the solution
Departmental councils are often reluctant to install Samba-AD because most don’t have the in-house resources to run the software, including knowledge of Samba. They will therefore go for a solution managed by Microsoft, which is much more expensive than Samba-AD, even though they both meet more or less the same criteria. France Relance came to audit our contact’s IT system, and they were unable to thwart the security flaws.
Testimony
Today, I feel that Samba-AD is more than a Microsoft AD particularly with the help of Tranquil IT, who provided us with a lot of support.
The benefits of WAPT
The first benefit our interviewee mentioned was having the most homogeneous IT estate possible, and keeping track of Windows updates. At Tranquil IT, we like to know what our customers use the most.
So, here are the features most used within the department’s IT department:
- Package deployment
- Reporting
- Configuration auditing and more specifically local administrative rights on workstations
To conclude, WAPT is a software package that has recently arrived in the department and has already won over the IT department. Without WAPT, it would have had to find several tools to complement OCS. With WAPT, the team uses Windows updates, package tracking, audit tracking and IT asset status.
What WAPT has brought to the Department
WAPT was only recently implemented in this department.
Initially, the colleges were using the Discovery version of WAPT and the Département was using OCS but very quickly reached the end of the tool. For example, when the centralization project came along: “We opted to move to the Enterprise version because we needed many more workstations and also a need to pool tools.” explains our contact. The idea was to interface the two products WAPT and Samba-AD in order to scale up.
Here, the départemant doesn’t use a single console but two: one on the colleges and one on the Conseil Départemental to limit risks and better secure both infrastructures.
The test phase:
Two collèges were used as POCs, representing around 350 workstations. The POC lasted around 1 month, after which the Conseil Départemental provided training to get to grips with WAPT.
Estimated gains using WAPT
Before WAPT, the department was using OCS, but the team quickly got to the end of the tool. Our contact gave us a few examples:
Considerable time is saved, since when they open the WAPT console, they can see whether a package has been installed correctly. As well as saving time, he talks about increased efficiency. In WAPT, it is possible to replay the installation of a package, and also to check in real time whether the package has been properly installed.
After training, their team relies heavily on our online documentation, forum and takes a few hours of support for specific questions.
Estimated gains using WAPT
Video feedback
Some of our customers have agreed to talk about their experience in pictures. Find them in the dedicated Youtube playlist: